A few people who are thinking of trying spearfishing, or are interested in it have doubts regarding the ethics of the sport. This is understandable, as the fish are certain to die a death in a brutal manner. However, when compared with the majority of other methods of procuring meat, spearfishing is just as ethical as the other method that you can find.
To answer these questions though it is important to add one caveat. Spearfishing will only be as ethical as the person who does it.
In this piece, I’ll try to tackle the morality of spearfishing in general as well as its humaneness and environmental impact.
Is the sport of spearfishing ethical?
If you don’t believe that killing and eating animals is wrong, then the only answer to this question should be that spearfishing can be considered an ethical sport. I’ll go into more detail about the humaneness and eco-friendliness of spearfishing in the next post however, it is a tradition that humans have done since before the day we were first a human species.
An ethical spearo could skip shots of vulnerable species, often letting even the fish they love reproduce more offspring. They may also be selective, removing just one or two of any particular species from a single location before moving to another. Spearfishing, when done correctly can be a definition of sustainability. It involves taking a tiny amount of fish and permitting the fishery to sustain itself and flourish.
Does spearfishing pose a risk to humans?
The humane nature of spearfishing is an important aspect of the ethical dilemma, but I believe that it’s an entirely separate issue. There’s some debate over how much pain fish can actually feel, but for the sake of this argument, we’ll disregard it completely and presume that their survival instinct and a strong aversion to death is itself a kind of pain. Every responsible spearo will have only the best equipment and the best freediving gear which will allow him to pay attention to the fish and try to cause it to feel the least amount of pain possible.
Here is how a fish dies when it’s taken by a responsible spearfisherman. The fish is shot, and the steel shaft of the fish goes through the body. Usually, the shaft will go through the brain and the fish will instantly die. If not, then the spearman must fight the fish in. An experienced spearo will then put an instrument into the fish’s brain to kill it. This is done to protect the environment and to improve the quality of the meat.
With a smaller fish, death usually comes within minutes of being shot. With bigger game fish, the fight could last longer and could take up to ten minutes before its demise. The same is true with fishing by reel or rod, although there is some argument to suggest that hooking by one’s mouth will be much less traumatic than being impaled by spears.
